Mahershala Ali apologized to Shirley's nephew, Edwin Shirley III, saying that "I did the best I could with the material I had," and that he was not aware that there were "close relatives with whom I could have consulted to add some nuance to the character." Writer-director Peter Farrelly said he was under the impression there "weren't a lot of family members" still alive, that they did not take major liberties with the story, and that relatives he was aware of had been invited to a private screening for friends and family. Quincy Jones said to a crowd after a screening, "I had the pleasure of being acquainted with Don Shirley while I was working as an arranger in New York in the '50s, and he was without question one of America's greatest pianists ... as skilled a musician as Leonard Bernstein or Van Cliburn ... So it is wonderful that his story is finally being told and celebrated. Mahershala, you did an absolutely fantastic job playing him, and I think yours and Viggo's performances will go down as one of the great friendships captured on film." On January 14, 2019, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar published a piece in The Hollywood Reporter defending the movie. Abdul-Jabbar argued that "while such discrepancies may irk family members, they don't really matter because those plot details are about getting to a greater truth than whatever the mundane facts are."

Film

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